Commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 8,740,391 (hereinafter “the '391 patent,” which is incorporated herein by reference) discloses a system for providing a distributed manifestation within an environment. The system may include one or more transmitting units (referred to by the '391 patent as “projectors”) which may transmit to a number of receiving units distributed throughout the environment. The receiving units may manifest a state change in response to receiving a transmission to create, for example, visual effects (e.g., changes in color, video, the presence or absence of light or an image, etc.) and/or effects which involve sound, shape, odor and/or other sensory stimuli. State change manifestations may be for a fixed period of time, or dynamic (e.g., receiving units may change state in real time, or be perceived to do so). In some embodiments disclosed by the '391 patent, a receiving unit may comprise a wearable device, which is a device or collection of components that may be worn, carried or otherwise transported by a user, such as an attendee at an event.
In some embodiments disclosed by the '391 patent, a transmitting unit generates electromagnetic signals having wavelengths in the infrared, visible and/or ultraviolet spectra. An electromagnetic signal may be encoded to convey information to a receiving unit that receives the transmission. The information may include state information which corresponds to location (e.g., spatial coordinate) data. A receiving unit located within the environment receives the electromagnetic signal from the transmitter and decodes the signal to discern state data associated with its location (e.g., spatial coordinates within the environment). The receiving unit then may express a state in accordance with the state data as a result of being situated at its location at the time the transmission was received and processed.
A representative receiving unit 32 is shown in FIG. 1. Receiving unit 32 includes a receiver 34, a state changing component 54 which enables the receiving unit to express a state, and a power source 64 for powering the receiver and the state changing component 54. Receiver 34 may, for example, comprise a sensor for receiving a signal of a particular wavelength (e.g., an infrared sensor for receiving a signal having an infrared wavelength), and/or one or more other components suitably configured to allow the receiving unit to communicate with other modules (e.g., transmitting units). State changing component 54 may, for example, include one or more light emitting diodes or other components for manifesting a visual display.